New Yorkers may soon be able to make campaign contributions to political candidates via text message.

The City Council passed a bill (Intro 764-A) on Tuesday that would allow the campaigns of candidates running for local office to collect donations up to $99 via text messaging.

Using the 2012 presidential campaigns as models — both the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns accepted texted donations after the Federal Election Commission approved their use — the city is giving the New York City Campaign Finance Board the leeway to explore how the system would be implemented. The board itself testified in support of the bill at an October hearing.

Unlike previous models, however, New York’s will be the first in which texts donations are eligible for matching funds. Candidates participating in the city’s public financing program receive a six-to-one match for every dollar donated by New York City residents.

“The City’s landmark campaign finance program is designed to expand the role of small-dollar contributions, amplify the voice of average New Yorkers, and reduce the role of special interests in our elections,” said Matt Sollars, a spokesman for the CFB, adding that the bill would also help candidates and the program keep pace with current technology.

{pullquote}We hope to make it easier for people who may not be otherwise connected to political fundraising to participate in the process. — City Councilwoman Gale Brewer{/pullquote}

The bill’s co-sponsor, Councilwoman Gale Brewer, explained that the $99 maximum donation would require a minimum amount of paperwork from donors.

“The New York City campaign finance system is often lauded as one of the country’s best examples of how to encourage small donors to be involved in political campaigns, instead of relying on large contributions,” Brewer said. “With this legislation, we hope to make it easier for people who may not be otherwise connected to political fundraising to participate in the process, making elected officials accountable to a multitude of constituents, not just deep-pocketed special interests.”

Brewer went on to note that there are some obvious issues that still need to be sorted, most notably shared cell phone plans. The bill leaves it to the CFB to address how to verify that the text’s sender — and not just the bill payer — actually donated to a campaign and provides the information required by campaign finance law.

“The CFB is aware of all these questions and they’re already thinking about them,” Brewer said on Tuesday.

HUMPS NOT BUMPS

The Council also unanimously passed a bill requiring speed humps around the city’s schools. The bill mandates that the Department of Transportation evaluate the area around all city schools — public and private. It also calls for no fewer than 50 humps a year at a total annual cost of $350,000 to $500,000.

Intro 732-A, which DOT testified in favor of, also requires that its commissioner provide a detailed report to the Council speaker if the agency deems that humps don’t need to be installed.

“This bill will help prevent the tragedy of our children losing life and limb to reckless, speeding drivers,” said Councilwoman Debi Rose, the lead sponsor of the bill. “I am thrilled that the council will once again show its leadership in ensuring public safety and protecting our most vulnerable citizens – our children – by passing this important legislation on Tuesday.”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn argued that speeding was one cause of deadly crashes, and that the Council “must do everything we can to prevent fatalities.” Describing the humps as “a longer, flatter version of a bump,” she went on to say that the Council is still deliberating on a bill to reduce speeding limits on side and residential streets but hopes to see a vote before the year’s end.

“We’re actively working on it right now,” Quinn said.

ONLINE BALLOT ACCESS

The Council also passed a bill (Intro 488) to require the city Board of Elections to post sample ballots online, a practice that the board had already begun to do voluntarily in recent elections. The sample ballots, which can be found on the board’s website by inputting a voter’s address, were often referred to during this year’s election as a way to reduce voter confusion with the 6-point font on the two-page ballot.

The New York Public Interest Research Group is calling for major reforms of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's state ethics panel in a 20-page report outlining their wishlist for the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. 

"Blueprint For Reform" offers up some of New York's good-government groups' greatest hits on campaign finance reform: eliminating loopholes that allow unlimited giving to housekeeping accounts; banning the personal use of campaign funds; and requiring more disclosure.

Unsurprisingly, NYPIRG also calls on Moreland to recommend replacing the oft-reviled state Board of Elections that was subject to a public shaming during the commission's last hearing.

NYPIRG provides the following recommendations to prevent the new enforcement board from being mired in partisan battles:

NYPIRG recommends five commissioners should be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, with no more than two from any one party and one without party affiliation or governmental involvement. The new commission must have the power to enforce all aspects of the campaign finance law and issue regulations. The results of all votes should be made public.

The most daring section of the report involves ethics enforcement with the report detailing how Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Joint Commission on Public Ethics could be reformed to prevent a few appointees from stopping investigations. "The board is structured to allow legislative appointees to short-circuit investigations of lawmakers," reads the report, "even if a majority of the board votes for action. Moreover, the size of the board is unwieldy: the 14 member board should be reduced."

Legislative appointees loyal to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver have long been thought to have stopped an investigation into him and his handling of the Vito Lopez sexual harassment scandal.

The NYPIRG report also goes after Cuomo's tendency to appoint people he enjoys strong ties with to JCOPE.

"The public must feel confident that the state's ethics regulations are being enforced without fear or favor," reads the report. "Ensuring that staff have not been recent employees of those whose ethics they monitor is important to ensuring such confidence."

NYPIRG wants Moreland to recommend that JCOPE be subject to public meeting laws and Freedom of Information Law so that the public feels confident in the work the commission is doing.

Cuomo formed the Moreland Commission after state lawmakers refused to respond to his calls to clean up Albany politics following a spate of corruption scandals earlier this year. 

The commission was set to release its preliminary report on how to reform state government by Dec. 1, but sources told the Gazette not to expect the report to be filed on time because of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Blueprint to Moreland Commission

The Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption will not be delivering its preliminary report on Dec. 1, as was announced when the commisison was first created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a source with close working knowledge of the panel told the Gotham Gazette on Thursday.

"I don't know if someone didn't look at the calendar or something but it is the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend," said the source. "It is not going to be December 1st. ... You can expect a more appropriate date shortly thereafter."

The source said the report could come more towards the middle of the month of December as the commission continues to wrangle with subpoenas. A spokesman from the Cuomo administration referred our questions about the report to the Moreland Commission. The panel's spokesperson has yet to return our request for comment. 

Parts of the commission's report will likely figure into Cuomo's State of the State speach in January as he begins a more public campaign to win ethics reforms in Albany. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said yesterday that there are negotiations with the state Legislature over subpoenas from the Moreland Commisison. 

The Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Conference unveiled its legislative priorities for 2014 on Monday, saying that it was time for Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislators to “walk the walk” on progressive issues.

Feeling strengthened by Bill de Blasio’s resounding victory in New York City’s mayoral race — and heading into an election year where the immigrant vote could be a decisive factor — members of the conference say they plan to hold the leadership accountable on issues important to their constituents.

But not on the list of the conference’s 10 priorities was one that two city lawmakers — Sens. Adriano Espaillat and Jose Peralta — plan to push: Legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for drivers’ licenses.

“Connecticut already passed this,” Espaillat said in an interview with the Gotham Gazette. “How can New York not have this law when you have people driving in everyday from Connecticut under their law? You even have conservative states like Colorado that passed it.”

De Blasio has publicly pushed Albany to approve such a measure. The only problem is that the last time the measure was introduced it was a bit of the a disaster for the governor who championed it — Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer issued an executive order in 2007 directing state agencies to issue driver’s licenses to the undocumented. He rescinded the order after backlash and introduced it as legislation; it failed in the Senate. Then he put it into effect as an administrative measure at the Department of Motor Vehicles but eventually withdrew it as backlash continued.

Javier Valdez of Make the Road New York said the support of the mayor had a major impact last time the issue was before the state. “I believe, in 2007, when Bloomberg came out against it, it really took a lot out of us.” But Valdez said 2014 will be different with the support of the new mayor, the fact that 2014 is a state election year and the growing electoral power of the Latino vote.

Espaillat said he expects a: “full court press” on driver’s licenses starting next year and would like to see the issue dealt with early on before the budget comes up. That scenario seems unlikely as touchy issues always seem to be pushed to the last minute in Albany.

“We are going to make sure it is on the voter’s radar screen,” said Espaillat. “I hope the Republican conference sees it as something that will help soften their image with the community.”

When the 51-member City Council returns after the New Year, one of the first orders of business will be to pick, from their ranks, a speaker to preside over the legislative branch. That person will instantly become the second most powerful political office holder in the city.

“It’s incumbent on the Council to get together as soon as possible to pick its speaker,” said Peter Vallone Sr., the first Council member to hold the seat, in a recent interview. “Speed is of the essence.”
 
The race to replace Christine Quinn, the current speaker who is being term-limited out of office, began long before New Yorkers even went to the polls to vote for mayor in November. The outcome will largely be shaped by backroom dealing among political power brokers and special interests, with Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio potentially stepping in to ensure a candidate ideologically aligned with his progressive agenda is picked for the job.

And while a series of public forums and Council members have promised that this time around the process of selecting the next speaker will be more transparent, that pledge has been made before.

To help bring some much needed clarity to the selection of the next speaker, we’ve put together this primer on who is running, why it matters and the powers that will make the final decision.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE SPEAKER’S OFFICE

Before 1994, many of the duties now wielded by the speaker were held by the majority leader. There was also a Council president. But after the City Charter revision that year, the Council president became the public advocate and the office of speaker was created and put in charge of Council operations.

There have only been three Council speakers since then — Peter Vallone, Sr., Gifford Miller and Christine Quinn.

Vallone, a Queens councilman, served 16 years before being barred from re-election because of term limits. He was succeeded by Miller, a councilman from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, who served four years before a failed run for the mayor’s office. Christine Quinn came into the speaker’s seat in 2006 and is leaving after her own unsuccessful bid for mayor this year.

The history of the speaker’s office has, of course, been shaped by whomever is sitting in the wing across from the Council’s offices in City Hall. Vallone lasted through three different mayors, growing the power of the speakership as a counterweight to the executive. Miller and Quinn faced off with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Few yardsticks demonstrate the tone of the relationship between the two wings of City Hall than the veto override — one of the most powerful tools that a speaker can pull.

While few bills make it to the floor of the Council without already having the votes needed to override a mayoral veto, some speakers count on the 34 necessary votes more than others. Quinn has presided over 27 mayoral overrides — the most recent examples being the Council’s overrides of vetoes of the Community Safety Act and paid sick leave legislation. Miller saw 38 overrides; Vallone organized 30.

SEAT OF POWER

According to the City Charter, the speaker “shall preside over the meetings of the council.”

Broadly speaking, this has come to mean that the speaker controls which legislation is brought to a vote before the full Council, appoints members to committees and distributes discretionary funding. How the process works is usually determined in rules agreed upon after the selection of a new speaker by the Council.

{pullquote}It might only take a simple majority of Council members to pick a speaker, but getting to that magic number of 26 is not easy.{/pullquote}

The speaker is also a principal partner in the yearly budget dance with the mayor, whose office drafts the budget. The Council responds, giving the administration another chance at negotiations. And year after year, the speaker and mayor join their staff and peers in City Hall’s marble rotunda stairs to celebrate an agreed upon budget.

A portion of that budget includes member items. Seen by critics as a political tool that can be used to reward allies and punish the disloyal, member items are individual allocations to Council members for local projects that are traditionally distributed at the speaker’s discretion. The results are mixed: some view the system as an incentive for Council members, other see it as yet another excuse for political patronage.

But money isn’t the only way that the speaker reveals his or her relationships to fellow Council members. The speaker can also dole out key leadership and committee chair positions as bonuses to loyalists. Those jobs sometimes come with financial perks called “lulus” that have ranged from $4,000 to $28,000 in the recent past.

NAMING A SPEAKER

It seems to happen each time a new speaker is named: lawmakers and power brokers claim that the process of selecting the next person to hold the seat will be more transparent than ever before. But it’s not a democratic process. It all comes down to which candidate can gather enough support from peers and from powerful special interests.

It might only take a simple majority of Council members to pick a speaker, but getting to that magic number of 26 is not easy. Much the same way a speaker might work to secure votes for legislation, candidates for the job have spent the last few weeks lobbying the future Council’s various factions and delegations for support.

In recent years, party leaders from the five counties have seen waning influence on city politics. Even so, they’ve historically served as a means for candidates to ensure support from the borough delegations, often receiving top committee seats soon thereafter. Of the three speakers, two have hailed from Manhattan, yet neither would have won the seat without outer-borough support from party leadership.

Quinn, in her inaugural address to the Council as its speaker, directly pointed to then-party bosses Assemblymen Vito Lopez and Jose Rivera, of Brooklyn and the Bronx, respectively. She also embraced former Queens Congressman, party leader and then-kingmaker Thomas Manton, who was widely reported to be influential not just in Quinn’s bid for speakership but also Gifford Miller’s.

It’s not to say, however, that the selection of the fourth City Council speaker needs to follow the same route. Vallone, who served as majority leader before the position of long before speaker was created, said that County leaders have an important role, but that “hopefully the county leaders can play a role as well as the Council members.”

If the votes don’t coalesce around the party leadership, there are other groups that candidates can and already have made appeals to, including the Council’s various caucuses. The Black, Latino and Asian caucus already has a majority of the Council membership, but insiders point to the fractious nature of the group. The Women’s Caucus shrunk since last year while the LGBT Caucus doubled to six members.

The only group visibly mustering force from within Council is the Progressive Caucus, with its ties to newly resurgent labor unions and the Working Families Party, sweeping in at the same time as an ideologically aligned mayor-elect.

It’s unclear how many members make up the upcoming iteration of the caucus, but many anticipate it growing significantly — close to doubling — from the current slate of 11 members. And even those who don’t join it are already lining up behind key rules reforms that most of the leading prospective speakers have signed off on.

However, members of the caucus won’t say if the reforms are a prerequisite for a speaker candidate. It might not matter much; 31 incumbent and anticipated new City Council — not all members of the caucus — have agreed to rules that would effectively decentralize the powers of the speaker’s office on member items and legislative influence.

And while Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio denies having any say in the race, his political allies aren’t as shy this year as they were in 2006. Back then, healthcare union and progressive stalwarts SEIU 1199 declined to endorse a candidate.

But after backing de Blasio solidly in his race for the mayor’s office, it is likely that they will play an outsized role in helping to select the next Council speaker. They’ve already hosted at least one reception for one of this year’s candidates, openly lobbying county leaders.  Buidling workers union 32BJ is also flexing its muscles this year, with reports that its political director is also courting the borough bosses.

LOOK WHO’S TALKING

Since 2006, Councilwoman INEZ DICKENS has represented the 9th City Council District, which includes Central Harlem and Morningside Heights. A known Quinn ally, Dickens was rumored to be a leading contender to take charge of the Council when Quinn dominated the mayoral candidate field — a lifetime ago in New York City politics.

While serving as chair of the Council’s ethics committee, Dickens recently had to push back on widely reported accusations of being a slumlord. In August, the New York Post published a report that Dickens and her sister owed $265,000 in building fines. Even so, Dickens still has powerful friends. Capital New York reported on a gathering organized by Rep. Charlie Rangel to give Dickens’ chances a leg up.

MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO would appear to be one of the names replacing Dickens on the list of top candidates for Speaker. With serious back-up from some of the city’s loudest progressive voices, the Harlem lawmaker has political cache with Blasio, having been an extremely early supporter when few thought he could break into the top three during the primary.

Having joined the Council in 2006, Mark-Viverito is a founding member of the Council’s now-burgeoning Progressive Caucus, which has spent the last few weeks warming up for a greater role in the next Council. She also has the unofficial support of de Blasio’s biggest labor backers SEIU 1199, and at least one solid fan found by the New York Observer who is running a one-man campaign for the councilwoman from District 8.

Just a few blocks of the south of Mark-Viverito’ district is DAN GARODNICK, whose 4th district includes the stretch of land between the Upper East Side to Stuyvesant Town. An attorney by trade, Garodnick also joined the Council in 2006. Chair of the Consumer Affairs committee, Garodnick has built up reputation as an independent moderate.

Garodnick leads up the Council’s Manhattan delegation and was a key player in the recently scuttled plan to rezone Midtown East before the end of the Bloomberg administration. Last month, the New York World looked at a series of donations Garodnick made in other council campaigns, noting the $35,000 spent on both incumbents and new faces at City Hall.

Garodnick wasn’t the only one to give a boost to the new class of Council members. The same report revealed that Queens Councilman MARK WEPRIN spent $25,000 on Council races and another $20,000 on the Bronx and Brooklyn Democratic parties. Like Garodnick, Weprin is often looked upon as one of the Council’s most centrist voices.

He was known for much of the same during his 15 years with the New York State Assembly, joining the Council in 2009. Representing most of northeastern Queens in District 23, Weprin recently fended off intense criticism from police unions for voting in favor of the Community Safety Act after the labor groups — after they had already endorsed his campaign.

Across the water to the north lies the 18th Council District, represented by ANNABEL PALMA. Elected in 2004 to represent neighborhoods in East Bronx, Palma also chairs the Council’s general welfare committee. Most recently, she was a loud opponent of Mayor Bloomberg’s teen pregnancy prevention ad campaign that many critics said relied on fear tactics and social stigmas, Palma having raised had a son while in high school herself.

Palma’s otherwise managed to keep a low profile on the Council, but has managed to build relationships with her fellow legislators — including Speaker Quinn, who had Palma’s support during the mayoral race.

Like Palma, JAMES VACCA has also managed to fly under the radar into the speaker’s race. Representing the Bronx’s 13th district — encompassing Throgs Neck, Pelham Bay and more — Vacca joined the Council in 2009 by running on the Democratic and Republican party lines.

A moderate Democrat, Vacca previously served as district manager for Bronx’s Community Board 10 for 25 years before. Today, he chairs the Council’s transportation committee.

Of course, other names have been floated as prospective City Council speakers, even if they’re not winning the race for headlines. Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer of Queens have both had their names thrown about, as has Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams.

The contenders to be the next City Council speaker have been invited to a series of forums throughout the city. Here's the schedule so far (it's unclear right now who is expected to show up at each one):

Nov. 18: New Settlement Community Campus, 1501 Jerome Ave., Bronx.

Nov. 19. 6 p.m., Brooklyn Borough Hall, Brooklyn.

Nov. 20. Presented by Citizens Union and the Baruch College School of Public Affairs, 6 p.m., Baruch College, 55 Lexington Ave. Event information.

Nov. 21. Sponsored by the New York Immigration Coalition, 6 p.m., Talking Transition Tent, Duarte Square, Sixth Avenue and Canal Street.

NEW YORK — After about three days of being isolated in “the Box” away from his fellow detainees at Rikers Island, Ismael Nazario was beginning to break.

"That's when it started to take it's toll,” he said, conjuring memories of his time in punitive segregation — solitary confinement — in one of the nation’s biggest jail complexes. “I was just like, 'Yo, I cannot be here like this.’”

In his compact cell, furnished with a toilet and cot, Nazario had little space to move, he recalled in a recent interview. "I just talked to myself, answering myself, pacing back and forth.”

Nazario was 16 years old and awaiting trial for robbery the first time he was sent to the Box, he said. According to Nazario, he had been caught with a pouch of tobacco, considered contraband, and was accused of pushing an officer as he tried to dispose of it in the toilet. But the contraband alone would have been enough: both violent and non-violent infractions can land an inmate in punitive segregation. Once there, detainees spend 23 hours per day in their cells.

Now a 25-year-old case manager for at-risk youth at the Center for Community Alternatives in Brooklyn, Nazario said his multiple stays in the Box stayed with him long after he left.

“You have this deep rooted anger and frustration from being in the Box, so the first thing somebody says wrong to you or does wrong, looks at you wrong, you're gonna pop off,” he said. Several studies have found that being confined to a cell for 22 or more hours per day with limited human contact can leave inmates socially and emotionally unstable.

After years of criticism from advocates, the city’s practice of isolating detainees through punitive segregation has come under scrutiny from lawmakers and city officials. In recent months, the City Council passed legislation to bring greater transparency to the practice. But perhaps the greatest change will come in the months ahead.

Motivated by a recent report on solitary confinement at Rikers, the Board of Correction, which oversees the Department of Correction, is seeking to limit the city’s use of the punishment through a slow-moving rulemaking process that could take up to a year. "We're concerned about everybody in solitary confinement, and particularly those with serious mental illness and adolescents," said Dr. Robert Cohen, chair of the Board's committee on punitive segregation.

However, the city’s Department of Correction and the mayor's office have rejected the sweeping critique of solitary confinement contained in the report that informed the Board's decision, as well as the report’s recommendation that isolation only be used as punishment in the most extreme cases.

In an email, the Department defended punitive segregation as just one part of "a comprehensive continuum of care and control" developed to "ensure everyone’s safety." Department of Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro declined to comment further.

The Department has been working towards its own program for reform, however. One major change is already underway: eliminating solitary confinement for people with serious mental illness.

The Push for Reform

In mid-September, members of the Jails Action Coalition rallied outside of a meeting of the Board of Correction at the Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan.

As they awaited a decision from the Board on whether it would attempt to change Rikers' punitive segregation policies, the lawyers, case workers and activists who form the Coalition sang and held a banner that read "Solitary is Torture."

The banner invoked Juan Méndez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights,who called more than 15 days in solitary confinement 'torture' and recommended the punishment not be used at all for adolescents and people diagnosed with mental illness.

In June, following a petition by the Jails Action Coalition, the Board commissioned an independent investigation into punitive segregation at Rikers.

The study found that punitive segregation sentences at Rikers routinely exceed 15 days and that people with mental illness are disproportionately placed in isolation for breaking the rules. When the researchers visited the city jail over the summer, they found a quarter of the adolescent inmates of 16 and 17 years old in solitary confinement.

A separate, recent count by the DOC also revealed that more than one in seven inmates at Rikers is currently being held in isolation — significantly higher than thenational average of about one in 25.

Rethinking the City's Largest Psych Ward

Nearly 40 percent of the population at Rikers Island is mentally ill, according to the Department of Correction, making it, de facto, the city's largest psychiatric facility.

Martin Horn, the city's previous Commissioner of Correction and Probation, said this has posed more than just a disciplinary challenge.

"You're asking the jail to take on a role and a responsibility that it was never intended for, it was never physically constructed for, it was never properly equipped for, the staff was never properly trained for, and the staffing patterns were never properly based upon," said Horn, who is now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

This past month, the DOC launched the Clinical Alternative to Punitive Segregation at Rikers, which wasannounced in May as an answer to "widespread concern about the impact that solitary confinement has on the mentally ill."

The program places people who break the rules and have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or another condition the Department considers a "serious mental illness" in a separate, but more communal setting, where therapy is available.

Inmates diagnosed with mental disorders that are not considered "serious" can still be placed in isolated cells for breaking the rules, although they will be offered therapy and incentives for good behavior.

The Department expressed hopes that this approach would help remedy the fact that the average stay of a mentally ill inmate at Rikers is twice as long as that of an inmate who has not been diagnosed with a mental illness.

But advocates for prisoner rights say the DOC needs to focus on improving the quality of its psychiatric treatment in order for it to be effective.

"The way they're trying to provide therapy with a therapist who isn't really engaged reading from a manual, that's just not the way we do it," said attorney Jennifer Parish of the Urban Justice Center. Parish has represented several mentally ill inmates at Rikers and is a founding member of the Jails Action Coalition.

Parish said inmates who receive therapy while in solitary often meet with the mental health clinician inside their cells.

"If you read the [Minimum] Mental Health Standards, there's no way that you can think that adequate mental health treatment could be provided in a punitive environment," Parish said.

Making Solitary Public

There are no public records of the number of people in solitary confinement at Rikers.

In April, City Council members Daniel Dromm and Elizabeth Crowley introducedlegislation to require the Department of Correction to publish monthly statistics on punitive segregation. The mayor’s office has declined to comment on the pending legislation.

"We need to know who they're putting in solitary, why they're going into solitary, and how long they're staying in solitary," said Dromm, who added he took up the cause after noticing the "very, very detrimental effect" solitary confinement had on a friend who served time at Rikers for drug charges.

The punitive segregation capacity at Rikers peaked at 1,035 cells and is now on the decline, according to the DOC.

The Department attributed the hundreds of punitive segregation beds added in the last two years to a "long-standing backlog" of unserved time by inmates who have broken the rules. Dromm has introduced aresolution calling on the Department to end the practice of cashing in on "time owed" in solitary confinement by inmates who return to Rikers after being released.

Is there a way out?

The addition of punitive segregation cells at Rikers has corresponded with a significant increase in violent incidents in the last five years, according to Mayor’s Management Reports between2008 and2013.

"Correction officers bear the brunt of it by being assaulted on a daily basis," Norman Seabrook, president of the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association,told City Limits in March.

Both Seabrook and former Commissioner Horn have cited cuts to the number of correction officers at Rikers as part of the problem.

There was a decrease in jail violence during Horn’s tenure from 2003 to 2009, which he attributes to a variety of preventive tactics, including the installation of video cameras. "I think it was the result of putting staff resources where they were most needed," Horn said.

Still, Horn said that punitive segregation is necessary to maintain order.

"If two inmates get in a fight, they have to be separated, they have to be protected from each other. In society, when you break a rule, you go to jail. Punitive segregation is the jail within the jail."

Parish suggested that offering inmates more services could also create more alternative punishments for breaking the rules.

"The more incentives that you have that people want to be involved in, the more you can make not having access to that one of the potential punishments," she said.

Parish acknowledged the need to separate inmates who pose a threat to others, but said the disciplinary system should be "focused on rehabilitation, not locking someone in for 23 hours a day."

"As long as we see even one day of that as trivial, as not such a big deal, we're going to have a hard time getting to another place."

Caroline Lewis is a freelance radio and web journalist working towards a Masters at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Read and listen to her stories here.

The plan to rezone East Midtown to make room for new, larger skyscrapers is dead — leaving Mayor Michael Bloomberg without one more data point to his 14-year legacy running the city. So where might the Bloomberg administration turn to burnish the mayor’s reputation before Bill de Blasio takes over in January? The mayor’s office didn’t respond to us when we asked them, but we have some ideas.

One area could be lobbying reform. Last week, the City Council held a hearing for a bill incorporating a number of recommendations passed down by a commission created by the administration in 2011. All signals indicate that the mayor’s office has been supporting the bill along its route, and that the mayor will sign it.

The administration has also been keen on seeing the final package of bills on resiliency post-Superstorm Sandy signed into law. On the one-year anniversary of Sandy, a panel of administration heads listed the 59 recommendations the city put forth in its resiliency plan. Thirteen of those recommendations passed by way of legislation through by the Council, and at least 11 through administrative changes. But that leaves more than half of the recommendations unfulfilled.

The Bloomberg administration also surprised some New Yorkers by announcing in mid-October that it would open or expand no less than 23 charter schools before de Blasio takes office. A hardline supporter of school choice, the decision flew in the face of de Blasio’s staunch skepticism of the charter school system.

De Blasio is also at ideological odds with the Bloomberg administration’s plans for the city’s public housing program. Last year, the New York City Housing Authority announced it would explore leasing city-owned land to private developers to build market-rate housing. While the mayor and NYCHA chief John Rhea have supported the plans as a means for stabilizing the agency’s budget woes, de Blasio has consistently pushed back on the idea.

Developers have until Nov. 18 to submit proposals, giving the city six weeks to put the plan in motion.

Of course, a lot of these efforts may go the way of the East Midtown plan — which was scuttled by the mayor’s office on Tuesday after it faced resistance in the City Council. The plan to upzone a 73-block area in East Midtown would have been a triumph for an administration that has, for better or worse, redefined neighborhoods and local economies through zoning policy.  

But the mayor ultimately had no choice but to be satisfied with leaving his final major zoning proposal in the hands of de Blasio, who has promised to turn around a new plan before his second year in office.

That doesn’t mean that Bloomberg has given up on having some say over what happens to East Midtown after he leaves office. “We are glad to at least be leaving the next administration a blueprint for future action,” the mayor’s office said after it pulled back the plan, perhaps in a last-ditch effort to signal that this, too, might one be added to the Bloomberg legacy.

NEW YORK — New Yorkers may soon be able to watch any public hearing organized by the city from the electronic device of their choice.

The City Council approved a bill on Thursday requiring any agencies, committees, commissions, and task forces to video record meetings held in public. The bill also calls for those meetings to be webcast live “when practicable.”

With an initial price tag of $280,000 — which includes the cost of installing, training and baseline annual expenses of $100,000 — legislators and good-government groups alike think it’s a small price to pay for increased and improved transparency.

The law would come to pass 90 days after outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg signs off on the bill, and would require the agencies and boards to at least put up the recording within 72 hours of a meeting’s end. Groups with the capability to webcast would also need to provide a live stream through their respective websites.

“The law says practicable but we believe most folks will do it because, as we’ve seen here in the Council,” Speaker Christine Quinn said before the vote on Thursday, “it has not been burdensome at all.”

Introduced by outgoing Councilwoman and Manhattan Borough President-elect Gale Brewer, the bill requires 18 agencies to record their meetings. The list includes the Loft Board, Civilian Complaint Review Board, Conflicts of Interest Board, Taxi and Limousine Commission, City Planning Commission and the Board of Health.

“The City Council has already shown its commitment to this goal by launching its own webcasting system, which has allowed thousands of New Yorkers to access Council proceedings,” Brewer said on Thursday. “I am a strong believer that transparency and technological innovation lead to a smarter, more accountable government, and this bill will be a big step forward in bringing government to the people.”

{pullquote}The BOE does record its weekly public hearings, but only provides audio recordings on cassette tape through open information requests.{/pullquote}

The city’s Board of Elections, which Brewer and local leaders have long called on to broadcast their meetings over the Internet, is also on the list of 18 agencies. The BOE is already required under state law to broadcast its weekly hearings online. But the board’s commissioners have steadfastly refused to do so.

The BOE does record its weekly public hearings, but only provides audio recordings on cassette tape through open information requests.

The board’s executive director, Michael Ryan, said on Thursday that he hadn’t seen the city legislation yet but that the BOE would abide by whatever law is adopted. “We will comply,” he said.

Former Board President and Republican Commissioner J.C. Polanco, who resigned from the BOE in early 2013, said that he lobbied his peers to stream the board’s meetings for about six years. Unable to secure the votes needed to adopt the idea, Polanco said the board was worried about the expense.

“I was just concerned no one had time to go to the hearings,” Polanco said, praising the City Council’s vote on Thursday.

Two years after Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council created a commission to help make recommendations for overhauling the city’s lobbying laws, the panel’s work is beginning to yield results with new legislation.

But with less than 55 days before the new mayor comes into office, time is running out for Bloomberg to sign any changes into law. Outgoing Council Speaker Christine Quinn is the primary sponsor of the bill.

Intro 1172-2013 now moving through Council committee doesn’t make any wholesale changes to the city’s lobbying laws, but it does fill in some cracks left after a 2006 revamp. The changes include:

• A stronger outreach initiative by the clerk’s office and its lobbying bureau.

In the final report, the lobbying commission suggested that a new point person handle the various efforts required by the new law — including proactive searching on state databases and mandatory education for newly registered lobbyists. The bill, however, does not explicitly require the position be created, nor does it assure that more money be allocated for staffing.

• A fuller online public database, building on the current one created by the clerk’s office and the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. The new bill’s amendments provides no certain deadline for the revamp.

Unlike the current site, the updated version would also show what agencies or legislators were lobbied, as well as the bill or rule number being lobbied upon. It does not require registrants to reveal how much was spent in the course of their lobbying.

• Sharpens the definition of lobbying, incentivizes unregistered lobbyists to comply with the city’s requirements and gives the city clerk’s office more discretion and leeway to proactively seek out new registrants to the system.

The law would also better exclude architects and engineers who routinely present plans in front of community boards and city officials from the lobbying requirements, especially on “minor projects,” leaving it up to the clerk to define “minor.”

• Raises the threshold to declare activities to $10,000 in time spent lobbying. That number doesn’t apply to nonprofit organizations, whose threshold for reporting activity was raised to $5,000 from $2,000 spent in lobbying.

Good government groups New York Public Interest Research Group and Citizens Union — Gotham Gazette’s sister organization — both testified to the importance of both the revamped site and a designated lead on outreach.

“These items will ultimately be left to the next mayor and speaker to implement,” Alex Camarda, the director of public policy at Citizens Union, said after a government operations committee hearing on the bill on Nov. 7. “But the Council should now amend the bill to memorialize these reforms so they are obligations for our future city leaders.”

Gale Brewer, chair of the government operations committee and a sponsor of the bill, appeared to be especially concerned by the bill’s impact on nonprofit groups, calling them  “citizen lobbyists” throughout the hearing.

“The public deserves information about who is lobbying elected officials, and to what extent. However, we must also strive to create a system that is not overly burdensome for compliance, especially for small organizations,” Brewer said.

The lobbying commission’s chair, Herb Berman, a former councilman, admitted at the hearing that the thresholds merited a closer look, even after the Council passes whatever bill it can muster in the coming weeks.

“I do believe that considering the fact we were under a time constraints,” Berman said, “that’s an area that still has to be looked at. Time will tell if further change has to happen.”